Identifying “foot falls,” or the contact between a person's foot and the ground, can provide a useful piece of information for those who exercise by walking as well as for more serious runners. For example, some people count the number of foot falls (or steps) that they take in a day in order to achieve a certain daily goal. Guidelines provide that healthy adults should take a total of approximately ten thousand steps every day. In order to monitor the total number of steps taken, some people wear a device, such as a pedometer, to track their steps.
Foot falls are also an important piece of information for runners. Specifically, some runners monitor their foot fall frequency or the number of footfalls per unit time (also referred to as “cadence”). For example, some runners may have a target number of foot falls per minute or other time unit that they try to achieve while running or jogging. Studies suggest that some of the world's fastest long-distance runners have a running cadence that is between eighty-five and ninety-five foot falls per minute. Achieving a higher cadence can increase a runner's speed while at the same time demand less energy. A high running cadence can also help to prevent injury. To monitor cadence, runners often wear a device that identifies foot falls and converts that data into a displayable cadence.
When weather or another factor prevents a person from running or walking outdoors, people often run or walk on a treadmill. As with running or walking outdoors, a person wanting to track their foot falls may need to wear a device to monitor foot falls while they exercise on a treadmill. Wearing a device to monitor foot falls, however, can be annoying and distracting. Further, the monitoring device may interfere with the user's natural running or walking motion.
Thus, there is a need for a treadmill that can sense the foot falls of a user performing an exercise, convert that data into a cadence, and display to the user information regarding cadence.